The Princess Blog

In recent years, it has become trendy for everyone to criticize the Walt Disney Company as much as humanly possible. In many cases, it  is justified , but  these criticisms  are unfounded regarding Wish , Disney's tribute film to their 100-year animation legacy. This is a movie that provides Disney fans with everything they have been asking, begging, and wishing of the studio for years. It is a beautifully animated original story that is all heart with no pandering and is neither a sequel nor a remake . Since the movie is also an homage to the Disney animation of the past, it is packed with subtle Easter eggs that only true Disney fans will notice and are not obnoxiously in your face like some of their previous attempts with Wreck-It Ralph 2  or Chip'n Dale: Rescue Rangers . In fact, this movie was so entertaining that it got me thinking about the characters on a deeper level than the writers may have even intended long after I left the theater. As previewed in the trailers ,

It seems like every interest has an official holiday each year, but for the longest time, there wasn't any day to celebrate our love of princesses. In 2017, the newly retired Swan Princess series  declared the film's anniversary date of November 18th to be National Princess Day . Since the date was coined by one of the few princess franchises that was not bought out by Disney , the Mouse House does very little to celebrate and instead started its own World Princess Week  at the end of each August beginning in 2021. However, the rest of us can still get together to celebrate our love of princesses for National Princess Day on November 18th. This is a significant time period for not just The Swan Princess , but many other animated princess movies which  historically always come out right before Thanksgiving to generate optimal sales. The next Disney Princess movie to follow this tradition will be Wish , which comes to theaters on Wednesday. In honor of all these princess movie

Two new Broadway musicals featured Cinderella as a leading lady this year, and neither of them lasted for even four months on the Great White Way.  The first was Bad Cinderella , adapted from Andrew Lloyd Webber's short-lived Cinderella musical on the West End. The other was the Britney Spears jukebox musical, Once Upon a One More Time , which sounded like a bad idea from its inception. Both shows suffered from poor ticket sales, backstage drama, and criticism over the long-running trend of modernizing old fairy tales . Yet, the problem is not with the character of Cinderella herself , who has been a long-standing icon of fortune, romance, and glamour, but rather with the media's obsession of correcting popular stories to fit a standardized feminist narrative. After all, the most famous Cinderella musical, Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella , has enjoyed great success for many decades with numerous adaptations and revivals, one of which is allegedly still on the way . Be

As soon as I saw the previews for Netflix's new animated series, Unicorn Academy , I couldn't get over how similar it looked to Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders . Teenagers forming magical bonds with unicorns to save the world from evil? Yes, please! With a Jewel Riders graphic novel on the horizon, this is the perfect time to revisit that premise. Unicorn Academy is loosely based on a book series of the same name  that got picked up by Netflix and recently aired its first season. The premiere movie and successive eight episodes follow six unicorns and their riders on their quest to protect the magical realm from the evil Ravenzella, who performed reprehensible acts to previous generations, including the father of the main character, Sophia. The show contains a lot of teen angst and drama as well as rainbows, sparkles, and magic. Although Unicorn Academy features an entire school full of unicorn riders training to be protectors, it only focuses on the six students liv

It's no secret that Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders was my absolute favorite cartoon as a kid. There are few others who share this passion with me as the show is still obscure even in an era of countless nostalgic reboots , so when I first heard that Mad Cave Studios  was partnering with 41 Entertainment to make a series of Jewel Riders graphic novels , I was skeptical. A few days ago, my cynicism  was laid to rest when a press release revealed the cover art and release date for the novel. It's really happening! On May 28, 2024, the first issue of the brand new YA Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders graphic novel will be available wherever graphic novels are sold. It's even available to pre-order on Amazon right now! Take a gander at the gorgeous new official cover art below that stays true to show's color palette and art style while adding a modern manga-inspired flare. I am absolutely in love with this new Magic Girl anime-style cover art that features

Magpie Tower is the newest visual novel in  the Time Princess app . It came alongside a massive update that made the game even bigger and more comprehensive than it was already. This story is not based on any pre-existing property, so it isn't obvious what it will be about without playing through it. The story takes place in modern-day Korea like a few of Time Princess's previous visual novels  and includes free Korean voices for several of the main characters during key scenes. It is a disability-friendly story  that focuses on the hardships of living with numerous difficulties that are not obvious at first glance. Though it does not contain any royal characters due to its modern realistic setting, the story focuses on one of the most important themes of what it means to be a fairy tale princess: kindness and compassion . Magpie Tower takes place from the perspective of Ha-yeon, who runs a fried chicken restaurant called Yummy Fried Chicken. While this setting seems a bit ran

I've been stepping around the controversies regarding Disney's new Snow White  movie for some time now. Several new revelations have come out in the past few days, so it's time to discuss it. Everything about this movie has gone up in flames, sometimes quite literally . The fact that Disney is remaking the first feature-length animated movie of all time in live-action was already a sign of poor showmanship. After adding the fact that the lead actress Rachel Zegler seems to hate the original film  and that the leaked photos so far have been less than flattering , many people are wondering if it's a good idea for this movie to still happen at all. As it turns out, so is Disney. As of today, Snow White  has been officially delayed from its March 2024 release date to March 2025 . Although Disney is blaming the Hollywood strikes for this more so than the controversy, it does give them some extra time to smooth out the movie's rough edges that have had countless fans u

I received  Feathers of Snow  by Alice Ivinya in a book promotion some time ago and recently got around to reading it. After reading her ARC of The Golden Prince  I knew that Alice Ivinya was an expert at fantasy worldbuilding. This book is a retelling of "The Goose Girl"  that puts a unique spin on it by switching the role of the oppressed protagonist from the princess who was forced to work as a goose girl to the lady-in-waiting who was forced to be a princess against her will. Though the princess role swap is an overused trope, it is less common for a girl to be forced into the role of a princess unwillingly. That said, the plot of this book is nearly identical to Camille Peters' Identity  only with less focus on romance, making it less of an emotional journey. Brianna is a lady-in-waiting to the spoiled and selfish Princess Elyanna who loves to manipulate people and get her own way. When a political marriage alliance is proposed for Elyanna to Prince Jian, whose fa

The new anime season has begun, and yet again, there are three new princess shows  to follow for the next three months. Each of them has only aired a single episode so far, so opinions may change over time, but I believe I've already picked a favorite. Even though there are so many new shows each season, many of them follow similar formulas such as the isekai trope , in which a character is reincarnated into a story they are familiar with and must try to change the outcome in their favor, and the yuri harem trope , which often features an all-female or mostly female cast, most of whom idolize one specific heroine in a romantic or sexual way. Two of the princess shows this season follow these archetypes, making them familiar and trite despite boasting new stories and characters. The third is unique and stands out as my favorite new show of the season. You wouldn't think that a show called  I’m Giving the Disgraced Noble Lady I Rescued a Crash Course in Naughtiness  would possibl

The Scarecrow King  by Jill Myles  was recommended to me a while ago, and I just recently got around to reading it. It is a delightful retelling of "King Thrushbeard"  in a traditional fairy tale world where all stories are connected. Though there were few references to other fairy tales in this book, it was a clever touch that the main character was the daughter of the protagonist from "Rumpelstiltskin"  who was blamed for her mother's incompetence of being unable to turn straw into gold after becoming queen. The book plays on a lot of the questionable elements of "King Thrushbeard," which was originally a pretty messed-up story about an abusive relationship with a princess who was lied to and manipulated to teach her a lesson. Here, the book expands upon why the princess acted the way she did and forces her husband to face the consequences of his actions, making for a more well-rounded story that fixes the problematic issues of the original fairy ta

There have been quite a few Broadway musicals  about royal ladies over the past few years, but most of them were closed before they truly had a chance to shine . Both Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cinderella  and Britney Spears' Once Upon a One More Time  only lasted a few months on the Great White Way before they went dark . One of the most contemporary shows about female empowerment that has stood the test of time is Six , the British musical about the six wives of King Henry VIII. I recently saw this show six years after its 2017 opening, so it lasted at least as many years as its namesake. What is it that made this show dominate so many other contemporary female-empowering fairy tales? For one thing, Six stands apart because it is not a fairy tale. The six historical queens who are featured in it had miserable lives for different reasons. By encouraging its audience to learn more about history, Six benefits from the success of other historical musicals like Hamilton , which is one